Reflection, opinion and debate

Propositions, once aired, will provoke contention.No surprise there then, since any genuinely random sample of opinion, be it political, moral, philosophical or even football, will throw up – no pun intended but since I’ve typed it let it stay – extremes which are irreconcilable.

The purpose of this site is, of course, to draw attention to my first and possibly only book, There Was a Time, the aim of which is to give a retainable account ofthis country’s history to those whose grounding in Britain’s recent past has been progressively eroded.

This has happened through the introduction of other, newer subjects in schools, and history, as a subject, stretched to include accounts of other countries’ business and heroes.This decision was possibly driven by demographic changes and the consequent demand to dilute the British content of what is taught.

Every child of the past two or three generations leaves or has left school knowing something of Harold Godwinson and his contemporaries, the wives of Henry VIII and usually one of the twentieth century wars and that is about it, give or take the odd exception in state schools.

Henry VIII is well-known to school history students

It is not for me to argue against this.Today’s teenagers emerge with skills that we of more advancing years can only admire; these are skills which are essential to cope with modern technology and work practices.

The book was written to help fill the gap for those interested in Britain’s role in shaping the world we currently live in, a story of a small but populous country in which men of vision started and drove the Industrial Revolution, established mastery of the seas to protect world wide trading of manufactured articles and, in the process, explored, settled and eventually governed parts of that world unknown to any other nation.

Put quite simply, Britain got there first through her own advancement which, in due course, she passed on.

I anticipated contentious debate on some of the issues raised and most of it has been healthy and, in some cases provocative, all of which is fine. If though, all or any constructive discourse is rejected outright with only accusations of: drivel, working-class Tory, British National mentality, bigot, white supremacist, racist, pathetic patriot and other epithets then the purpose of debate is stifled and devalued.

As the old saying goes: ‘If you cannot exercise or even slightly change your mind, how do you know that you have one?’

Future articles will be based upon British policies, mainly of the foreign variety, the re-mapping of Europe, consequent conflicts and their legacies.